


Doubt truth to be a liar

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: American Civil War, Conversations, F/M, Female Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, References to Shakespeare, Romance, Shakespeare Quotations, Widowed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-07-14 05:14:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16033712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: A lively debate, a fire lit in the hearth, an evening of revelation and shadow.





	Doubt truth to be a liar

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [her eye discourses](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15947156) by [tortoiseshells](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tortoiseshells/pseuds/tortoiseshells). 



“Hamlet?” Emma exclaimed but more quietly, entirely audible to Dr. Foster but not loud enough to draw back Mary’s attention to them both. Emma had modulated her tone purposefully, but it didn’t stop him from glancing towards Mary as she walked out of the sitting room the officers used in the evening. In the small lamplight, the sober color of her dress and its lack of ornament were attributes, focusing the eye on the gracefulness of her carriage, the ivory cameo her face made against the dark collar and her braided chestnut hair. Matron had come to fetch Mary in the midst of the lively conversation, for some task that could not wait another quarter-hour despite Dr. Foster’s argument.

“I’ll be back directly and I’m wholly certain you can continue disputing without me present,” Mary had said as she’d excused herself. “Perhaps I’ll find some others who wish to weigh in and bring them along with the rest of the apple tart and a fresh pot of tea when I’m done.”

“I’ll cede any point as long as you leave Hale out of it,” Dr. Foster had cried, mostly in jest.

“Heavens! If only I believed that were possible,” Mary had laughed as she left the room following Matron Brannan out. Before a real silence could take hold, broken only by the homely crackle of the fire in the hearth, Emma had spoken her disbelief.

“You’re surprised, I take it?” Dr. Foster said. 

They’d been making the most of the rare lull in calamity, the wards half-empty, with a debate about Shakespeare. The Bard, Dr. Foster insisted on calling him in a jovial, mocking tone that Emma knew meant he was enjoying himself mightily, much as Dr. Hale might do with a roasted pork loin and a full bottle of port. It had been some time since _Romeo and Juliet_ had been performed at Mansion House, but the memory of the theatrical remained vivid, Emma musing about whether they might encourage the smaller group of current patients to prepare a few scenes or monologues for their edifying entertainment. That was when Mary asked her which play was her favorite. Emma’s response, a robust defense of the historical plays, especially _Henry V_ , had been met with challenges by both Dr. Foster and Mary. But Dr. Foster’s jabs were all kindly teasing at heart and Mary’s questions so cleverly put that Emma was allowed to explain how she thrilled at the St. Crispin’s Day speech. And how charmed she was by the gentle romancing of Katharine and the formerly brash Prince Hal. Dr. Foster had spoken about his own fondness for The Tempest, adroitly parrying Mary’s remarks that he must identity with Caliban until Emma interrupted.

“And you, Nurse Mary—what is your favorite?”

“Hamlet,” she said simply. Perhaps she would have gone on, but Matron appeared then with her sharp dark gaze fixed upon their animated trio and had beckoned Mary to leave.

“Did she truly mean it?” Emma asked. Would she have asked the same question to Mary herself—or was it only a question to ask someone else who made a study of the Head Nurse? Someone who regarded her with an unceasing interest, an undeniable affection?

“Have you ever known her to say something she doesn’t truly mean? To speak without utter, sincere conviction?” Dr. Foster replied. For a moment, Emma wasn’t sure if he was asking her or questioning himself, but then he grinned broadly and looked so much younger, it was as if another man sat beside her.

“No. But I would not have thought it would be her favorite, not of all the plays,” Emma said. “The comedies or _The Merchant of Venice_ —she is our very own Portia, isn’t she?”

“Quite apt, Miss Green. Your governess is to be commended,” Dr. Foster said.

“It’s no thanks to her!” Emma retorted, thinking of sour Miss Ashworth, her endless injunctions against reading too long, too widely, her determination that embroidery was worth the whole of geometry and tatting the equal of Caesar’s Gallic Wars. 

“Nurse Mary is very like Portia. But I understand why she chooses Hamlet,” Dr. Foster said.

“Because of its philosophy, you mean?” Emma said.

“Sein oder Nichtsein; das ist hier die Frage:/ Obs edler im Gemüt, die Pfeil und Schleudern/ Des wütenden Geschicks erdulden oder,/ Sich waffnend gegen eine See von Plagen,/ Durch Widerstand sie enden? Sterben - schlafen -/ Nichts weiter!” Dr. Foster recited. Emma could not judge the quality of his accent, but he was fluent and she was familiar enough with Hamlet’s soliloquy to recognize it. A bit of kindling caught as he was speaking, casting a clear golden light across the plans of his face, the glow reflecting in his dark eyes.

“The Schlegel translation. I don’t think I butchered it too badly,” Dr. Foster said. “She chooses Hamlet because it is not Nurse Mary who answers, but the Baroness von Olnhausen. Because there is nothing we hold more in affection than the memory of our lost beloved. Their loves become ours, so that we may keep them with us.”

“Oh,” Emma said, feeling out of her depth.

“You mustn’t say anything to her about it,” Dr. Foster said. “Not even how terrible my German is, no matter how tempted you are. It will trouble her, to know I—we spoke of it.”

“But it doesn’t trouble you? To know how she misses her husband?” Emma replied before she could stop herself.

“To know she is a woman and not a saint? No, that doesn’t trouble me—though I wonder at you, Miss Green, for bringing it up so baldly. I might almost think Nurse Mary asked the questions, not the belle of Alexandria,” Dr. Foster said, ending lightly though Emma thought she could not forget what he’d said first—and with such undisguised tenderness. No one could believe it of him, she thought, then corrected herself. Perhaps there was one who could. Who already did.

“I’d rather be Rosalind,” Emma said, pouting just a little, to remind them both of how they were meant to be talking. It was comfortable, to be flirting again with a man who understood what she was doing and how blithely.

“Yes, I can see that,” Dr. Foster said. “Though you’d never convince anyone you were Ganymede, even without your deadly hoopskirt.”

“Shall you never forget that?” Emma cried.

“No. Nor any of this, I suppose. Not matter how much I might want to,” he said.

“What you want is your dessert,” Mary interjected, having come back in without their notice, her arms full with a tray of apple tart, tea-cups, and a chipped tea-pot faintly traced with apricot roses. “‘The last taste of sweets is sweetest last.’”

“Richard II,” Emma declared, taking a bite of the tart.

“Well done, Emma,” Mary said. Dr. Foster nodded. The fire burned on, the least hungry of them all.

**Author's Note:**

> So, here's an answer to "what does it sound like when Emma and Mary debate which Shakespeare play is best?" Now, with more German, more slightly tortured romance and a title from the Bard and not Dickinson. This must be in some amorphous late Season 1, early Season 2 time after tortoiseshells's story occurs, before McBurney arrives...
> 
> August Wilhelm (after 1812: von) Schlegel (8 September 1767 – 12 May 1845), usually cited as August Schlegel, was a German poet, translator and critic, and with his brother Friedrich Schlegel the leading influence within Jena Romanticism. His translations of Shakespeare turned the English dramatist's works into German classics.
> 
> If you want to know more about any of the Shakespeare mentioned, Google's right there :)
> 
> (And yes, that was a reference to Austen at the end because, whyever not?)


End file.
